One Saturday night, early in the semester, I walked alone to the local middle school track to test my fitness in a mile time trial. Sitting on the hard bleachers shaking my leg and drinking my coffee, I watched a shirtless college kid run repeat 70-second quarters. I timed him, of course, and was delighted to find his workout, for which he’d stretched so pretentiously, was well within my ability. After warming up and eyeing him down some more, I approached asking if he wouldn’t like to exchange contact information and run together sometime. We talked, I got his number, he left, and I managed a 4:40.
Emboldened by these successes I made the decision I’d make friends, that very night, no matter what; and for assistance I turned to that old trusty tool, alcohol. But I didn’t plan to drink—no, my intentions were healthier and unequivocally kind. I planned to bicycle to two or three drugstores and steal three or four bottles of wine, which I would then present individually to kids on campus who appeared likely candidates for friendship. Who wouldn’t take to a guy like that?
But I struck-out at the Walgreens and the first gas station; the next stop was only confirmation of what I already suspected: these places didn’t stock liquor in Carbondale, Illinois. I longed to be back in Eastern Iowa, God’s country, where you could go into a drugstore and walk out with a satisfying tautness to your waistband, where things made sense. Whose breast do I have to suck to steal a bottle of wine around here? I thought.
Somewhat disheartened but never deterred, I now, in an impetuous change of plans, wanted to drink myself silly. I hit the downtown avenue sometimes called “the strip,” (complete with gay-bar and Dairy Queen), and entered the ABC Liquor Mart as casually as possible.
“What the hell were you thinking, you little punk?” said the strong-man, a full eight inches shorter than me. I stood petrified, thinking in a vague, desperate way, muted by panic, that since I hadn’t left the store I couldn’t get in trouble.
“You’re an idiot. You’re a thief,” he said, jabbing me with the butt of the bottle as he gripped my right arm and steered me backward. “What did you think, you could just walk in here and take anything? Cameras, bud, cameras. You’re gonna have a great weekend in jail!”
He pushed me against a cooler toward the front of the store, beside the register. I was a public spectacle. An overweight, orange-haired girl gave me a sympathetic shrug, an I could have simply bought it for you. A tall, drunk bearded twenty-something was less forgiving. He raised his pack of Swisher Sweets in hand and said, cruelly, “You should’ve just gone with these, bro—taken it easy” and he laughed joyfully, drunk off his head.
The strong-man, bald, in professional-wrestling t-shirt, laughed with him. “You didn’t even get anything good.” His fury had shifted to sadistic amusement.
“What did he get?”
“Fighting Cock.”
A wave of derisive laughter broke over me and a million fingers were fired my way. A burning spotlight was cast upon me, as the band struck-up in full. A monkey clanged his big brass symbols and I started melting to the floor.
The strong-man took my I.D. and told me to sit on my ass so I didn’t get any ideas, pulled up a chair and sat directly facing me while we waited for the police. My mind fired madly; I thought, maybe I can spring forth, pry my emasculated license from his stubby fingers, and fly out the door free into the night. But I knew it was hopeless. Even if I somehow surprised him and managed to seize my I.D., I would have to duck any potential good-Samaritans waiting in line to buy their sauce; even if I managed all that, he knew my name. I would have to live in fear, constantly checking over my shoulder for a bald head, for World Wrestling Entertainment apparel—and what kind of existence is that?
The cop arrived and I shortly learned that I would not have to go to jail; apparently, inexplicably, Iowa phoned back word of a clean legal record. The three of us, the strong man, the cop and I, retreated to the back room, where I got a firsthand look at the monitor that had been my undoing. My racing heart was met with some amount of healthy resignation and I opened up and talked freely; I was rather enjoying myself, now. We went through the obligatory paperwork and, as I’d suspected, we hit a minor snag when the cop learned I’d never actually left the store. The cop, a relatively kind man of indiscriminate outlines, who looked like every other cop, grimaced concernedly and inhaled air between his teeth.
“I’ll have to check,” he said, “It could be the case that he didn’t technically do anything wrong.”
They both turned to me. “Were you going to steal the bottle?” the cop asked plainly.
“Are you kidding? No, I wasn’t going to steal anything. Honestly, and I wanted never to have to admit this, I just enjoy putting things down my pants like that. It gets me off.”
They looked at me like they both wanted to beat me up, and I relented. “Yes,” I said, “Of course I was going to steal it. I was just kidding, I’m sorry.”
The strong-man looked tough and then split a reluctant smile, conceding some of his superiority. “I thought it was funny,” he said.
We all had a good time. I learned about several notorious Carbondale bums and alcoholics, some of whom were now banned from the liquor store—like me!—and the casual banter was only occasionally interrupted by inquiries.
“What was the brand, again?” the cop asked.
“I had the ‘Fighting Cock’ in my pants,” I mused, appealing to what I imagined their comic sensibilities. By the time I was fingerprinted I had added both the strong-man and the cop to my short-list of “Best Friends in Carbondale,” where they joined Mike, the runner.
“Have a good night,” the strong-man said when I was dismissed.
“Thanks, you too,” I said leaving.
“Have a good year,” he called.
I stuffed the citations in my underwear drawer and then hit the “Pinch Penny” liquor store, adjacent to the “Pinch Penny” bar. Looking around at the glimmering glass bottles, to the employees behind the counter, to the exits, it looked so easy, so tempting. But I thought better of it and instead accosted a nervous-looking young loner, who agreed to buy me two forties. I gave him ten dollars and waited for him outside, where he handed me a brown paper sack, with change, and walked off without a word.
“Hey man, can I bum a square?” a kid with gross tufts of facial hair asked me.
“Yeah, no problem;” I handed him a cigarette. I had bought a pack to make friends.
“Thanks a lot, man, really appreciate it” he said and walked off. I crossed the street holding the bag of beer to my chest, looked nervously over my shoulder and disappeared from view at the back of a car wash parking lot. There I tramped through a patch of wood and found my seat on a downed-tree overlooking a ditch. I played “Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again” by Bob Dylan on my cellphone, the one song I had, and cracked open the first forty.
Nine minutes later and half-way through my second forty, I threw up in the ditch. That was okay. I finished the second jeroboam cautiously, rose to my feet, and then immersed myself in the outdoor bar scene.
An eighties cover-band greedily clutching the tail-end their youths played cover songs of Journey and Whitesnake. Ordinarily I would have found this insufferable, but with some cheap beer in my stomach I was content just to stand there, smiling, and watch this cross-section of humanity. Occasionally I made an effort to reach out to someone, (Hey, I like your hat—want a cigarette?), but mostly I just looked at the people.
The stage was then vacated for the bikini contest. Of course, none of the participants were in bikinis, but rather their underwear, as they were just drunk girls at a sleazy bar. Sadly, most of the girls were quickly eliminated, and I was sorry to see them go. But my favorite contestant remained, and I made up my mind to support her wholeheartedly, as I’d never supported a candidate before—to donate to her campaign fund and canvas door-to-door on her behalf. Her breasts were glorious.
“Show us your tits!” the multitudes bellowed. “Whichever one shows their tits is gonna win,” remarked one particularly astute observer. I, on the other hand, when it was my girl’s turn to jiggle and wave, simply cocked my head back and roared furiously, baring my teeth, arms outstretched and veins pumping from my skin. My efforts were rewarded: for once in this mixed-up, crazy world, something went right, and my girl went home with five-hundred dollars.
Satisfied with my success, I escaped the swarming crowd to sit on a stone embankment at the outskirts of the bar’s enclosure. Blonde barmaids in little white shorts and lime-green bikini-tops milled about me peddling overpriced Busch Lights, and I bought a few, chain-smoking cigarettes. Finally and without much thought I rose and took my leave, stumbling a bit on the way back to my dorm. When I reached my building I found half a dozen students on the stoop, one of whom I recognized.
“Hey,” I said with the key halfway turned, “I paid for your dry-cycle once, right?”
“Yes, you certainly did. I appreciate it.”
“Can I bum a cigarette?” I asked. I had plenty in my pocket.
“For you, of course. What’s your name again?”
“Andy. And you…?”
“Brad.”
“D-D-D-DJ Bradblast” I said emphatically, suffering a mental lapse. DJ Dadblast hasn’t really “made it” this far south, yet, so any possible humor was lost here.
“No, I’m not a DJ—I just play the drums.”
We all sat smoking and listening to a portly Southern kid play guitar and harmonica. “Does anyone know the lyrics to ‘Wish You Were Here?’” he asked.
Shortly thereafter I lay in bed rubbing my feet together beneath the covers, drifting to sleep peacefully. I had done it. I had made new friends; my girl’s breasts had been crowned champions; I had led the chorus in an impassioned rendition of a timeless Pink Floyd gem. Everything was going my way.
